Shantay Robinson
Jul 3, 2025
As a kid, Nic at Nite was always part of the gifted and talented program. She was always the kid who would color in the lines and who just really enjoyed creating. Other kids would ask, “Hey, can you draw me?” “Can you draw something?” “Can you draw this or that?” And so, she’d always be in class drawing something, sometimes not paying attention. She says, “I've always loved art especially the inspiration that the art of others brings. And I've always, in my adult life, collected art in some form or fashion.” She started out collecting posters and prints, but in the early 2010s she seriously started collecting art after she bought her first property. Despite taking a break from art for 20 years, art never left her. “Coming back to it in 2020 was like coming back home to myself,” she says.
In her efforts to collect, her interactions with other artists were motivating. Having their work in her home, she’d say “This is great. This is beautiful. I should really start creating again.” She’s now able to fund her art career, with her day job. Largely motivated to make art because she doesn’t have to rely on the art market to fund her creativity, she says, “I can make the art that I want to, and that's really what motivates me. I get to make the art that I want to, rather than make art that people will buy.” She feels that art is an extension of herself. “I'm expressing my thoughts and opinions, and really sharing with the world what I think is important and what I think people need to hear and see.”
She thinks it's important for everyone to create in some form or fashion. But from her perspective, creating art is tied to her willingness to challenge the status quo. With her work she aims to challenge injustice and social inequality in the world. She’s inspired by so many things. She says, “I can look out the window and be inspired by something I see in the city. I can walk down the street and see a sticker on a pole that inspires me. I can see a person standing in the window and that can inspire. I draw inspiration from the world around me, because when I look at something, my mind almost always makes a connection to something else.”
Her work is layered in both physical and conceptual ways. There are physical layers to the artwork of elements on the canvas placed on top of each other, which is intentional. And then the messaging is also layered. She says, “I would describe it as socio politically critical, and a little bit smart ass. I think it has a level of depth as I find imagery and concepts and marry them all together to come up with a cohesive statement.”
Because she works in the business world, she sees having time to create art as a challenge. She says, “It took me a while to figure out how to work my day job, and then context switch into a completely opposite field, and get myself mentally prepared.” But her career has been beneficial in her pivot to being an artist being able to navigate the business side. Now she’s looking for ways to get into the right galleries and find the right opportunities.